Tuesday, February 26, 2013

From the Commodore - Day 12

Up at 7, showered, breakfast, made lunches and off
by 10. Stopped at Franz Joseph, the glacier further
north and visited the isite (info centre) for details of what to see
driving
north. I kept falling asleep in the
car. Too hot.

Drove north and stopped in Harihari for dad
to have a coffee and I had a boysenberry bar.
Very tasty. Very cloudy once we
left the valley.

Stopped at Lake Ianthe
for lunch which we’d packed. Water in
lake very warm and lots of people swimming there. Drove on and stopped
in Ross an old gold
mining town. Walked part of the trail
but it’s over an hour long and it was hot and late and I wanted to get
going so
we could find a hostel room.

Stopped in
another community that is called the jade capital of NZ. Saw how they
cut the jade, polish it and
bought some cute souvenirs for people.
Also found some colourful wool socks for myself in a sock museum across
the road. Had a long conversation with
the man painting the souvenirs I bought and he warned me about the
bridge to
the north which is a one lane bridge (most of the bridges in this
country are
one lane, even the long ones) that also takes the train.

We got ahead
of the train and then went to
cross the bridge and dad stalled the car right on the tracks! A little
flurry of excitement! Got safely across ahead of the train then
stopped on the roadside to call up different hostels. The ones by the
pancake rocks where we are
going tomorrow were all booked up so we drove into Greymouth looking for
the
info centre and found a lovely hostel full of art work and got a room
there.

For $2 we washed a load of
laundry, made dinner, hung the laundry to dry and dad got the pictures
from my
camera onto his spare hard drive as well as the computer. After dinner
we drove out to the point to see
if we could see any dolphins (no luck) and watched the fishing boats
coming in
over the bar.

While typing this addition
I found my stupid watch battery has died and so I’m watchless again!
What a pain in the rump! I think it’s bedtime.